“I have never wanted to have a fortune until now. And I must tell you the reason of that, too. A man without a fortune does very well by himself. He can knock about, and live from hand to mouth. But when he wants to live for somebody else,--even if he has only a very faint hope of getting the opportunity of doing it,--then he must have some settled means of livelihood to justify him. So I say I am in a difficult position. For if I give this up, I must go away; and if I go away, I must give up even the little hope I have.” “Don’t go away,” said Miriam, after a pause. “Do you know what you are saying?” He hesitated a moment, looking at her as she looked down at the empty basin. “My hope was that you might love me; for I love you, to be my wife.” The color slowly rose in Miriam’s face: at length she hid it in her hands. “Oh, what is it?” she said, almost in a whisper. “I have known you only three days. But it seems as if I must have known you before. There is something in me that is not like myself. But it is the deepest thing in me; and it loves you: yes, I love you!” Her hands left her face, and there was a light in her eyes which made Freeman, in the midst of his rejoicing, feel humble and unworthy. He felt himself in contact with something pure and sacred. At the same moment, the recollection recurred to him of the figure he had seen the night before, with the features of Miriam. Was it she indeed? Was this she? To doubt the identity of the individual is to lose one’s footing on the solid earth. For the first time it occurred to him that this doubt might affect Miriam herself. Was she obscurely conscious of two states of being in herself, and did she therefore fear to trust her own impulses? But, again, love is the master-passion; its fire fuses all things, and gives them unity. Would not this love that they confessed for each other burn away all that was abnormal and enigmatic, and leave only the unerring human heart, that knows its own and takes it? These reflections passed through Freeman’s mind in an instant of time. But he was no metaphysician, and he obeyed the sane and wholesome instinct which has ever been man’s surest and safest guide through the mysteries and bewilderments of existence. He took the beautiful woman in his arms and kissed her. “This is real and right, if anything is,” said he. “If there are ghosts about, you and I, at any rate, are flesh and blood, and where we belong. As to the irrigation scrape, there must be some way out of it: if not, no matter! You and I love each other, and the world begins from this moment!” “My father must know to-morrow,” said Miriam.